The electrical current demands of a high-speed microprocessor sometimes generate unacceptably large reductions in voltage, often called voltage droops. To ameliorate excessive voltage droops, decoupling capacitors are sometimes placed on the substrate at the processor die. Typical, the decoupling capacitors are discrete components that introduce undesirable inductance, thus degrading the performance of the capacitors.
In addition, the signal lines of a high-speed microprocessor are susceptible to degradation of signal integrity arising from excessive delay, cross talk with adjacent high-density vias and other losses.